Sam Cooper

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American songwriter/producer/musician Sam Cooper is originally from Richmond, VA. Sam moved to New Jersey in 1972 at 19. As a small child, he fell in love with sound...a relationship that has endured throughout his life. As soon as he could make noise with any musical implements and sing, he did.

BUSINESS--Sam is president of JERICAT MUSIC LLC which is based in Nashville, TN & the Jersey shore.

PERFORMING--As a performer, Sam has worked in many styles of music and played with a number of bands. Over the decades Sam has performed from the east coast to the west coast, as far north as ski slopes of New England and as far south as the blue waters of the Carribean. As a part-time resident of Nashville, TN, he can usually be seen performing in songwriter settings there during the 3rd and 4th weeks of each month except December.

Mainly a vocalist, guitarist and bass player, Sam has been performing professionally since the late 1960s. While still in Richmond, Sam played guitar behind both singer/songwriters Cleve Francis (who is also a noted producer/artist) and Steve Yudowich from 1970 to 1971. After moving to New Jersey, he performed (in chronological order) as a soloist and as a member of bands such as SOUTHBOUND, BONE DRY, TRICK ZIPPER, OPUS I, THE ACME BOOGIE COMPANY (which originally also included long-time friend Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez who was Bruce Springsteen's drummer from the 60's all the way through his second album on Columbia Records), DEUCE COUPE (with Lisa Martin), VINI LOPEZ AND THE DISCO REJECTS, THE MIGHTY ACCENTS, PHATMAN (featuring Slick Aguilar who is the long-time guitarist for Paul Kantner and Marty Balin as well as a current long-time member of JEFFERSON STARSHIP), MAJOR WOODY & THE SPLINTERS, THE SONNY PREWITT BAND and HEY! BETTY! Sam now generally performs publicly as an original artist in Nashville, TN. He occasionally will sit in for unannounced performances with artists in NJ, too. His schedule can be found at the website mentioned earlier.

DIRECTIONS--Sam directs his primary focus towards songwriting, recording and production. His songs cover a lot of stylistic ground--classic rock, country, soulful rhythm & blues, funk, reggae, country rock, blues, straight-out rock & roll, southern rock, folk, heavy metal, jazz, & pop music. He is also in the process of updating his songs by re-recording much of his catalog written since 1970.

Besides writing and recording his own material, Sam collaborates as a producer, writer and co-writer with both established and rising artists/writers in Nashville and NJ.

He and his partner, Steve Lockett, are responsible for producing the exclusive monthly invitation-only 4S shows (Saturday Secret Songwriter Society) in Nashville.

Sam is also an active member of the NSAI (http://www.nashvillesongwriters.com), the Nashville Songwriters Association International. His music and publishing company (Jericat Music LLC) are registered with performing rights organization BMI.

RECORDING--In January, 2006 with a newly constructed computer-based recording system employing Cubase SX-3 (similar to ProTools) along with Reason, new demos and master recordings are now produced for the purposes of songwriting, production, and public consumption. The studio is undergoing a hardware and software upgrade in the Spring of 2007 to accommodate Cubase SX-4 and additional plug-ins. As necessity dictates for various projects, he provides vocals, guitars, percussion, bass guitar, harmonica, and keyboards. For recording on the fly, Sam now also employs the Boss BR-600 digital multi-channel recorder.

MUSICAL GEAR--In his inventory of musical equipment are guitars, basses, and other fretted instruments by Heartfield, Fender, Gretsch, Baldwin, Martin, Takamine, Ibanez, Yamaha, G & L, Sekova, Falcon, and ShoBud. Sam records and/or plays keyboards including Wurlitzer, Roland, Cable & Nelson, Hammond and M-Audio keyboards. He also has a 5-piece Ludwig drum set (mainly for his son Kevin's use at this point, since he's looking at electronic kits now). Other instruments in the inventory include a banjo, trumpet, tenor sax, flute, piccolo, harmonicas, ukele, and various percussion items. For live performances, Sam prefers singing through a Shure SM-58 mic, but for recording, he opts to use an AKG C414 going through his primary pre-amp, Focusrite's Liquid Channel. When not running directly into P.A.'s or recording consoles, Sam has a variety of amps from Fender, Ampeg, Acoustic, Carvin, Crate & Peavey, His standard pedalboard setup includes Boss noise reduction/power, tremolo, eq, and digital delay pedals. For some live performances, Sam would occasionally employ his wireless Samson system for guitar.

The following is based on information from http://www.jericat.com, home web site of Sam Cooper and Jericat Music LLC: Besides biographical information, that site contains pages with photos, recordings, news & blogs, favorite links, a performance schedule, an e-mail link, direct contact information and a guestbook.